Wargaming Smallmindedness

One thing that wargaming never seems to be short of is bitching, whining and petty jealousies. I guess that part of it is a reflection of the passion people put into their hobby but a big part seems also to be that wargamers as a whole are a mal-adjusted lot (obviously yours truly excepted).

Saw another example of it over the weekend at the Auckland Battlecry tournament. One of the locals Charlie St Clair (Proximity on a lot of forums) took up his Orks to compete in the 40k tournament. Now Charlie is a competitive gamer and has played the army to death. I'm guessing that he must have played over 300 games with it in the past 2-3 years. And he wins tournaments - as you would expect if you've put that much time and effort in on top of being an excellent gamer. Clearly Charlie is the best 40k player in Australasia having been ranked #1 in NZ the last three years and having been NZ Master two out of the three times it has been run.

Charlie is not your typical WACC gamer. His armies are painted beautifully - see his Pre-Heresy Emperor's Children in The Warhammer Forum Glass Cabinet's Hall of Fame - he is a nice guy to play scoring high sports (which against the backdrop of his record is a real tribute) though he does take tuned armies (as 99% of successful players do). He is always helpful to both people he knows and also strangers - in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he ran a homeless shelter for sick kids in his spare time. You get the picture - credit to the hobby.

Prior to the weekend there were stories circulating that a group of players were trying to get his army vetoed - not because it was too hard but because he had won too many tournaments with it. Then at the event he plays six games and scores 88/90 Battle Points, the next highest being around 72. The results are read out and Charlie has finished 2nd, the first place getter coming through on a better comp score.

Now his finishing second is not my snitch. The TO obviously decided how he was going to award comp - as his his right - and decided that the disadvantage the other player had in list strength relative to Charlie was large enough to get him over the line.

My beef was with the reported response of the other players. When Charlie's name was called as 2nd there was a loud cheer. This apparently was clearly not a "Well Done on Second" cheer but rather a "Ha! We glad you didn't win" cheer. Now this is truly sad and a real testimony that Tall Poppy syndrome is alive and well. Rather than try and get better people would prefer to see somebody fail (through 88/90 BPs, full Sports, 19/20 for painting and Second is hardly failure). Some people need to question their motivation when they get enjoyment from such an instance.

If you can't beat someone, don't denigrate their efforts....Next Time Play Better!